Keir Starmer has said Britain “needs to go faster” on defence spending, though any increase to military budgets in this parliament would probably not be as high as the £15bn suggested in an overnight report.
At a press conference in south-west London, the prime minister was asked to comment on a BBC report that No 10 wanted to increase the defence budget to 3% of GDP by 2029.
In reply, Starmer said the threat from Russia was obvious and likely to endure even if the fighting in Ukraine could be stopped. “We need to be alert to that, because that’s going to affect every single person in this room, every single person in this country, so we need to step up.”
He then emphasised “that means, on defence spending, we need to go faster,” which was initially interpreted as a clear indication he sympathised with the 3% spending proposal, though the figure did not appear to have been signed off by the Treasury.
Downing Street sources subsequently clarified that did not mean it was likely that defence spending would be raised to the 3% figure before the next election. It would be possible to “go faster” using alternative methods, they added.
A row has been going on for several weeks between the Ministry of Defence and the Treasury over the financing of the Defence Investment Plan, which was originally scheduled to be agreed last year but for which no publication date has been fixed.
Defence spending is forecast to have amounted to 2.4% of GDP in 2025 and is scheduled to rise to 3.5% by 2035 in line with Nato targets. But currently most of the promised increases are planned for the next parliament.
A plan to increase defence spending to 3% by 2029 would mean lifting the budget by about £15bn in real terms several years earlier.
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